The Brian Kelly Era begins Saturday with the home opener against annual foe Purdue. After an off-season spent parsing coaching comments, grasping at limited practice footage, and discussing the positives/negatives of the Blue-Gold game, Irish fans will finally be able to evaluate their new head coach.

If Kelly is to meet fans’ expectations, he needs to get started on the right foot. In this regard Purdue is…

September 4th marks the debut of the Brian Kelly era in South Bend. For the fourth time since 1997 Notre Dame has a new coach, and, once again, Irish fans are wondering if he can lead them back to prominence and succeed where his three predecessors failed.

To be certain, Kelly brings with him many attributes absent from the three previous coaches. He has college…

Thanks to all who participated in the 2010 Season Predictions Survey. When the data to support this analysis was gathered, over 1,500 votes had been cast.

The primary goal of this exercise is to move beyond simply estimating a win-loss record. Selecting the percent confidence in a win on a game-by-game basis is not only much more accurate, it also allows for some interesting follow-on…

Editor’s note: This is the final installment of a five-part series detailing the blueprint for winning the BCS national championship and measuring the Irish performance against this standard.

As Irish fans know all too well, Notre Dame hasn’t been part of the national title picture for over a decade. The last year the lads in blue and gold laid a legitimate claim to a championship…

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a five-part series detailing the blueprint for winning the BCS national championship and measuring the Irish performance against this standard.

As the offensive and defensive results indicate, there is certainly a blueprint for winning a BCS national championship. The overwhelming majority of the last 10 champions performed at very similar levels in the same statistical categories, and,…

Editor’s note: This is the third installment of a five-part series detailing the blueprint for winning the BCS national championship and measuring the Irish performance against this standard.

What is the defensive recipe for winning the BCS national championship? The aforementioned approach has been used to parse the data and identify the statistical metrics common to BCS champions. Staying consistent with the offensive results, these…

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a five-part series detailing the blueprint for winning the BCS national championship and measuring the Irish performance against this standard.

Offensively, what does it take to win the BCS national championship? The data below outlines the statistical metrics that answer this question via the approach described in the opening segment. The metrics have been divided into four…

It’s been 21 seasons since Notre Dame last won the national championship, and college football has certainly evolved during that time. The Associated and United Press Championships have been replaced by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Recruiting has changed focus to the talent hotbeds of California, Florida and Texas. Two tight end, I-backfields have been replaced by spread, multiple wide receiver formations. And defenses are…

The stat gurus at Football Outsiders have released the most recent edition of their off-season annual—Football Outsiders Almanac 2010—complete with an introductory explanation of some new and innovative statistics, 2010 projections for every college football team in the Football Bowl Subdivision, quarterback and recruiting rankings, and a brief history of conference realignment.

In conjunction with this release, Clashmore Mike sat down for a Q&A with…

The 2010 Notre Dame football season is drawing near. The Irish are a little over two months away from their home opener against Purdue and Wednesday marked the opening of ticket sales to the general public. In conjunction with the latter, and in preparation for the impending season, Clashmore Mike is hosting its annual pre-season predictions survey.

For the fourth time (excluding George O’Leary) since…